


shackles on your feet

by 875857



Series: live, for that is the hardest task of all [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Curses, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 22:43:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/875857/pseuds/875857
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To most of his subjects, Uther Pendragon is a kind and just king. To others, he is the monster that steals away their children in the night. To Arthur, he’s just the father fighting a losing battle - because there are many things his father can fight against, but a curse on his only son is not one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shackles on your feet

**Author's Note:**

> got bored, felt like writing cursed!arthur. anyway yes uther's a CRADLE ROBBER ajaiwejuafsidhg. 
> 
> there'll most likely be a companion piece that tells merlin's side of the story. honestly, arthur's side is super limited because thERE'S SO MUCH SHIT GOING ON in the merlin point of view lmao ok im done bye
> 
> unbetad but if somoene notices anything bad just tell m e. also i think i switch between uk/british w/e spelling and americanised spelling so just tell me if taht ahppens and i'll fix it sorry i'm tired lol ok
> 
> if anyones interested in being my beta just hit me up #YOLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ok bye  
> ( **GO AHEAD AND EMAIL ME AT 875857@gmail.com** )
> 
> oh wait title is from depeche mode's halo (goldfrapp remix preferably)

Arthur is only three when it happens; but Gaius recounts the tale to him when he’s older, old enough to understand with a serious expression. The words ghost through Arthur’s mind - and though eight is old enough to nod his head, it still does not mean he fully comprehends.

 

A curse, they say - Arthur feels _fine_ , he thinks.

 

He’s healthy, he’s strong, and he’s got a bit of baby fat that Morgana might make fun of him for - but everyone says he’ll grow out of it. So what’s the _problem_ , he asks - big blue eyes and tousled blond hair and the nursemaid just looks down at him with something that looks like _pity_ and takes his hand.

 

Nothing at all, my lord, she says - your father will take care of it.

 

His father does not take care of it.

 

*

 

And Arthur grows up, as all children eventually must. Fifteen and quick, not as big as some of the men but his shoulders are starting to broaden out - Arthur feels unease linger with every glance cast at him. The knights, most loyal to their father and to him without end, try their best to shield their young prince from the worst of their words. But whispers get to him, hissed quietly in the dungeons and in the lower town’s darkest corners -

 

Cursed. _Cursed_ little boy.

 

He wants to stamp his feet at them, scream that he’s not cursed and he’s not a little boy anymore. Throw fists that will land before he’s pulled away, pulled to his room and then reprimanded by his father. In the span of seven years - Arthur learns a lot. He understands more than he did when he was eight, or even when he was three and a sorceress named Nimueh had lured him away from the nursemaids and into the woods -

 

\- _holds him close and whispers words that he doesn’t remember into his hair - rocks him against her chest like the mother he doesn’t have - kisses his forehead and lets him wrap his hands around her thin, slender ones_ -

 

and then curses him to die when he turns eighteen.

 

But there is an exception - if Uther can find an exceptionally _strong_ magic user willing to sacrifice themselves for Arthur, he will live.

 

Arthur sighs, sipping the goblet placed by his plate and tries not to look too bored as the feast dances and titters around him. He is no longer naive - no longer holds the wide eyed innocence that many his age still hold. Beaten and rubbed out of him from the pressure of being royalty.

 

No magic user will give up their life for him. His father, in the years before he was cursed, had started one of the most violent purges in the known history of their kingdom - only three years, and Arthur thinks that the blood spilled could flood the lower town. There is much love lost between his father and the magic community - Arthur knows it is foolish to think that someone will step up and give their life for his.

 

Who would be stupid enough to do _that_?

 

The purge has been put on hold - magic still roams their lands with that distant trickle of power. And however much his father looks like he’d like to sentence sorcerers that still walk unharmed - but not free - to the chopping block. His father prefers burning, though - so perhaps pile the pyres so high that the smoke would billow up and engulf the skies of a sunny day and make it dark. But if there are any magic users out there that believe his father would forgive their kind if one gave up their life for his son - they would be wrong. Arthur can tell that if his curse is broken - _when_ , he has to remind himself - that Uther will go straight back to filling their dungeons with the doomed. He rubs his fingertips over the tip, the wine staining his fingers. He should resent his father more - for not being able to find someone to save him? Maybe. Probably not. He knows his father is trying - even so to the point that he’s sending out men to search for likely candidates.

 

 _Children_ , his father is searching out _children_ \- that have the potential to be strong magic users but are still without the hatred that drives their parents. The thought sickens him, but his father had gone tight-lipped and stone faced when he brought up a voice against it, telling Arthur to not go against him. Not in this.

 

Arthur backs down. Even if he understands why his father is doing it, he knows it’s wrong as he watches the knights ride out of the castle walls. Maybe he should resent his father for bringing the wrath of the magic users on them in the first place - but Arthur _knows_ that magic is evil. It corrupts. It needs to be eradicated, pyres burning until the smoke purifies their lands of its poison.

 

How ironic that it is possibly the only way to save him.

 

*

 

Now Arthur is sixteen, and Merlin is an _idiot_.

 

Arthur doesn’t know his name when he first meets him, only knows him as the commoner who dares to speak to him so informally, so nonchalantly like he _isn’t_ the prince of Camelot. But he watches with satisfaction as guards cart him off to the dungeons.

 

Nor does he know his name the second time, where he’s suddenly tripping over things, falling to the ground like his limbs aren’t his own and not understanding it. But there’s an opening, and the broom is a sword in his hand - It takes three swift, sturdy blows to knock Merlin to the ground like a sack of grain - and it takes a few words to get the guards to let him walk away. He walks from the experience with his head held high, and a round of laughter from the knights that follow after him, commenting on the commoner’s idiocy and foolishness.

 

The third time, there’s a dagger flying from the fallen form of the witch who’d pretended to be Lady Helen, and Merlin is _there._ Grabbing him tightly, he’s yanking him back and they fall to the ground as the knife embeds itself in the back of his chair - where he stood moments earlier. From that point on, they are nearly inseparable. Arthur soon learns about Merlin - bit by bit. He’s not just the arrogant, spitfire tongue that Arthur had faced in the courtyard, or in the marketplace.

 

He’s _more._  

 

He’s a complete klutz with a blade, crossbow, spear, and lance - but his sharp wit and strange, but soon comfortable humor is something that Arthur finds himself getting used to. He’s a caring, compassionate, fiery man that seems a little simple sometimes but his heart is always in the right place. He’s smart sometimes, his words able to cut to the heart of the matter and he brings things that Arthur never even _considered_ to the table. He keeps him grounded. He’s _there_ for Arthur - he never brings up the curse. He never mentions the growing mood of sadness that follows in Arthur’s wake as he passes through the castle on his daily duties as people watch day after day as Arthur grows into a man but doomed never to fully grow up. When they don’t think he’s looking - they watch him as a man slated for the execution block.

 

*

 

When he is seventeen, his father continues to search for someone strong enough, for someway to break the curse - but there is none. And some say Uther will turn his hair _white_ trying to find a way to search for his son - that he will leave no stone unturned or door closed or family untouched for a magic user with the potential to save his son.

 

Merlin watches through the window of his chambers as the knights sent out on the search come back empty handed once again, and he doesn’t sigh. Doesn’t show that he was even _thinking_ about the knights and their quest - but there’s a slight tenseness in Merlin’s shoulders that Arthur reads as concern. It touches his heart - all of it does. Merlin caring about him - makes heart do things it shouldn’t do, and he doesn’t think about it. Practically feels like he doesn't have the time  _t o_ think about it. But Merlin isn’t the only one that cares - he’s grown up a little more, and into his skin and does things that garner respect and adoration from his subjects.

 

And their hearts sink a little every time the knights come back empty handed.

 

"You're a good man, you know." Merlin says to him one day, out of the blue. Arthur looks up from the reports and blinks at him. He smiles warily, because this might even be one of the set ups to one of Merlin's horrible jokes. But Merlin is just looking at him, sitting on one of the chairs at his table and polishing a small dagger. The moment is... strange. It's caught - like a suspended moment in time that Arthur feels could last for as long as he'd like. Arthur doesn't know what to think of it, so he coughs, and quirks a brow.

 

"Complimenting me out of the blue, Merlin? Are you coming down with a fever?" He dons an expression that shows teasing concern, "Perhaps I should ask Gaius to have a look at you."

 

The moment is broken, Merlin scowls and goes back to cleaning the dagger with a renewed fervour.  

 

*

 

He spends his last night with his father and Morgana - a part of him is hurt that Merlin has suddenly returned to Ealdor to visit his sick mother. After all they’ve been through together. After _everything_. It is, after all, his _last day._ But Arthur can’t be mad at him - only jealous - because Merlin is putting his mother before him, and Arthur would surely do the same if he’d had a mother of his own. So he drinks wine with his family, feasts upon the greatest meats and fruits and cheeses they have. Uther tells Arthur tales of when he was a boy and Morgana tries to continue the rapier banter (one-sided, she has always been much better at it than he) that comprises their relationship.

 

Arthur feels strange, because it is like attending his own sort of wake - the mood is too cheery, too _forced_. Then again, what else could it be? No one is happy that this is coming. He knows there are villagers standing in the courtyard, holding up candles in their vigil. He’s _still alive_ , he wants to say, but there would be no point. It is only a matter of time.

 

Arthur came to terms with it years ago, thanks to an off chance, subtle conversation with Merlin about destinies and letting things take their course and how things will fall into place. Merlin had nodded his head, slowly and full of thought - before giving a pregnant pause and looking at Arthur in a way that seemed to show him a glimpse of a side to Merlin that Arthur had yet to see. And he’d said things about accepting your fate, and knowing that there was nothing to be done except travel that path and make the best of it. Which is what Arthur had done - he thinks back to the knighting ceremonies, the patrols, the villages he’s fought for, the smiles on their faces as they thanked him and tried to give him things when they had so little of their own - and he’s as at peace as anyone young as he could possibly be.

 

An hour until midnight. They break pretenses, and Morgana starts to cry.

 

Arthur has very rarely seen Morgana cry. She considers herself above it - and that’s what he likes and finds infuriating about her. She’s willful and strong - and he knows that she will be fine without him. The other way around, though? He’s not so sure. Without her - well, he’d be much more subservient to his father. She always reprimanded for things - played on his morals, his beliefs and urged him to do what he thought was right. She wished he would _do_ what was _right_. (Merlin had _told_ Arthur to do what was right, with a firm look in his eye - but he had also pulled and pushed Arthur into doing it, a presence that always lingered with him. And Arthur really wishes that Merlin were here now.) He thanks her for that, not with words but with the arms he wraps around her shoulders and holds her closely. He runs his hands through her hair and murmurs comforting words to her - presses a kiss to the top of her head as she holds on to him like she doesn’t want to let go.

 

He loves Morgana - he really does.

 

And his father - his father looks lost and close to tears and there's a tension that Arthur has never before seen. He doesn't like it - even when there are times that he feels his father is too strict, too demanding - he prefers those to this. To this version of his father that looks not _weak_ , but almost  _broken_. When he hugs his father, he briefly wonders when the last time they’d hugged like this was. Not brief embraces for show or in the court or whatever went on outside - but _this_. Intimate and slow - where Arthur truly feels the surge of love his father has for him. It almost makes him tear up. Arthur feels his father’s lips rest upon his forehead, and Uther whispers _I am so proud of you, my son_ to his skin and Arthur _has_ to bite back the tears.

 

He told himself he wouldn’t cry - refuses to, when other men would have broken down and sobbed - but hearing words like that - they soothe, hurt, and threaten to yank the tears from his eyes. Soothe - because Arthur has wanted to hear his father say them to him since the he was walking. Though it changed a year or two ago from Arthur doing things to please his father to doing things because they were good - he had still spent most of his life fighting for Uther’s approval. And he’s getting it now and it feels _wonderful_. But it also _hurts_ , because he’s going to _die_ , damn it all. He wishes that maybe, just _maybe_ his father could say this to him in a situation where he isn’t at death’s door. After a long campaign, or defeating a monster that was hurting the kingdom - but not _when he is about to die_.

 

He won’t admit it, but minutes to midnight Arthur gives a sigh that must sound like resignation but is secretly relief. His entire life - his _entire_ life, this has been lorded over him. No matter what he’s done, what he does, what he wants to do - _this_ is the day that will precede him. It sucks up his life - pushes him forward when he feels down and unwilling to go on because he is _running out of time._

 

He knows what they will write about him - the cursed prince.

 

His father will continue the purge with a renewed vigor and hatred for magic - taking away two of the people he’s ever loved. So he climbs into the bed, dressed in the pure white clothes that have been prepared for him and crosses his hands over his chest. Morgana is held by his father, and they sit at his bedside. Uther places one hand over his and gives his son a small but heavy smile, eyes red but tears not falling quite yet - but beneath that, Arthur can see it so _clearly_ , the burn of anger and frustration and _sadness_.

 

Arthur doesn’t want to see it. No. He takes another deep breath, one of his last - and closes his eyes. And then he waits for death to come, a brief thought of amusement that _death might be late, just like Merlin always is_.

 

Death doesn’t come. Morgana lets out a quiet sob, and Uther’s breath hitches in his throat and Arthur realises it must be midnight. He lets go of the breath he doesn’t realise he was holding and exhales, expecting it to _be his last_. And he doesn’t inhale again for a while, until his lungs start to burn and he _has_ to breathe in.

 

Strange. He continues to breathe, eyes still closed but eyebrows cinched together in confusion.

 

Moments, maybe minutes pass. Uther’s hand squeezes over his own hard enough to almost _hurt_ , and Arthur opens his eyes. He blinks up at the canopy of his bed, and nearly blurts out _why am I not dead?_ when he looks to his father and realises that he isn’t even looking at Arthur. This almost offends him, because _hey_ , he’s dying over here, isn’t he? But Arthur moves his head to follow his gaze to the foot of his bed. When he sees her standing at the foot of his bed, looking haunting and ethereal and beautiful, he sits up so fast his head spins from the strong wine.

 

“You.” his father says, voice calm but tense with coiled anger and fear and _recognition_. Time seems to _freeze_ , Uther half risen from his seat, Morgana with her eyes wide and surprised - both stopped in time, out of the flow that Arthur himself seems to be separated from. Nimueh doesn’t even look at Uther, just lays down a gentle hand on the bed spread and smoothes out a wrinkle there. She smiles at Arthur - and it’s kinder than he thought it would be.

 

It reminds him of - of what? He’s not sure at first, but then, then _he remembers_.

 

She smiles like she did to him all those years ago, when she cut the palm of his hand and let him cry while his blood trickled into a silver chalice. His breath catches again, and she laughs - a light, but empty sound. Her head tilts to the side, and she crosses to the side of his bed, opposite his father and Morgana and reaches a hand to stroke his cheek. He wants to, but doesn’t flinch - doesn’t do _anything_ \- he has no idea _what_ he to do. So he lets her touch his cheek, thumb gently ghosting below his eye.

 

“You have surprised me, young Pendragon.” He looks at her in a way that shows he does not understand, and for the first time, she looks at Uther. Her eyes are deep with despondent _sadness_ and _hatred_ that Arthur realises is mirrored in his father’s eyes when he talks about magic. He wonders why that is. Swallowing, Arthur looks her straight in the eyes, refusing to show fear even in the face of what he thinks is his death.

 

“Surprised you?” he says, voice steady though he trembles on the inside. Nimueh smirks, hand trailing up to brush hair away from his temple. It’s intimate, like a mother’s touch - or what Arthur assumes that would be like. But at the same time, it’s not. It thrums with power that Arthur can practically _feel_ beneath her skin. He wonders why she keeps touching him.

 

“You had a very loyal manservant.”

 

Arthur’s word screeches to a stop, and he doesn’t know if he heard that right.

 

“What?”

 

Pulling her hand back, Nimueh looks almost sympathetic,“Right. You didn’t know that your manservant was a warlock.”

 

“Merlin? Merlin isn’t a _warlock_. Much less an extremely _powerful_ one - “

 

“How else do you explain you still being alive, Arthur Pendragon? I assure you, I had no sudden change of heart on the terms of your curse. You were about to take your last breath, but Emrys has given himself up. For you.” And then she looks over him, as if wondering if he’s worth it. But Arthur’s still stuck on connecting _Merlin_ and _magic_ \- and the brief feeling of _betrayal_ because Merlin never _told_ him. But that leaves as quickly as it comes because _Merlin sacrificed himself for Arthur._ The thought shakes him to the core, and Arthur’s hand shoots out, grabbing Nimueh by the wrist. Her smile breaks, and she looks like she’s offended at him touching her.

 

“Where is he?”

 

And Nimueh frowns.

 

“He’s gone.”

 

“Where _is_ he?” he hisses, grip tightening, and Nimueh’s frown turns into a glare. She whispers words that make her eyes turn gold and her skin suddenly burns his hand and he has to let go. He cradles his hand and continues to stare at her. She doesn’t answer him though, stepping back and Arthur tries to scramble out of the bed to follow after her. But she’s quick to disappear through the doors. Uther and Morgana are moving again, and Arthur stands, looking shocked and disheveled but _alive._

 

But even as everyone around him rejoices, and a feast is scheduled for tomorrow evening - Arthur is unsettled. He is deeply unsettled. There are questions he has - for Nimueh, maybe for his father, and _definitely_ for Merlin.

 

Ridiculous, lazy, clumsy, _loyal_ Merlin.

 

There’s no closure. Arthur _needs_ closure.

 

So he seeks out Nimueh.


End file.
